Critic Reviews

Overall, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is quite a decent game, especially when compared with other movie tie-ins. Sure, it's unpolished, looks a bit choppy and copies mechanics seen in other, more popular titles, but it still delivers a pleasant experience based on the movie, so if you're a long time Harry Potter fan, you won't be disappointed with this one.

After nearly 15 years of books, films, games and more wizardy merchandise than you can shake a magic wand at, the Hogwarts Express (or should that be money train?) has finally reached the end of the line.

While I’m glad that the team at Bright Light was able to make a lot of drastic changes to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the short development cycle still hurt the end product. Shooting can be fun, but it gets old when you realize that the game doesn’t offer interesting level designs. If you love the franchise and want to play through the movie’s main events, give Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 a rental.

While I’m glad that the team at Bright Light was able to make a lot of drastic changes to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the short development cycle still hurt the end product. Shooting can be fun, but it gets old when you realize that the game doesn’t offer interesting level designs. If you love the franchise and want to play through the movie’s main events, give Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 a rental.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is miles ahead of the first game, but sadly, that's not saying much. It's a bare bones, flawed and unimaginative title that sadly never delivers on its novel ideas. So long Mr. Potter, sorry you never got a decent gaming experience.

Unfortunately for a series that has become the most successful in the history of cinema, its gaming counterparts just don’t match up. Some have at least shown a level of ambition, letting players explore a fully rendered Hogwarts School or including Kinect-based spellcasting for instance (no matter how poorly it was implemented). But Deathly Hallows: Part 2 just seems to lack the ambition and imagination that has been strived for previously.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is over in three and a half hours or so, which is a mercifully short playing time for a game that sells at a too-high $50 price. You can replay story missions on their own or as timed challenges that might earn you a place on the game's online leaderboards. But these missions don't make for very good challenges, in part because you still have to wait around for your AI companions to open gates or to trigger scripted events. The features that gave the previous Deathly Hallows game a bit of replay value--Kinect support and cooperative challenges--have been wiped away, making this last of the Potter movie games the worst value of them all. After you finish, you're treated to a montage of gameplay moments from the prior Harry Potter games, which serves not to inspire fond memories, but only to remind you just how much potential was squandered in a series of games that never lived up to their inspirations.

This is not a game worth buying for anything other than the amusing oddity of having a Harry Potter-themed cover shooter. It’s a short game, but it still doesn’t have the variety in environments that a shooter needs to avoid becoming unacceptably repetitive. The story is incredibly disjointed and you won’t get anything out of it unless you know what’s already going to happen. There’s little redeeming value in this game, and for a game that is supposed to be the finale of a story told across ten years of video games spread across three generations of video game consoles, the developers really should have treated this game with a great deal more respect.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is over in three and a half hours or so, which is a mercifully short playing time for a game that sells at a too-high $50 price. You can replay story missions on their own or as timed challenges. But these missions don't make for very good challenges, in part because you still have to wait around for your AI companions to open gates or to trigger scripted events. Nor are there online leaderboards, so you have no way of comparing your challenge times to those of others. After you finish, you're treated to a montage of gameplay moments from the prior Harry Potter games, which serves not to inspire fond memories, but only to remind you just how much potential was squandered in a series of games that never lived up to their inspirations.

A stripped down version of the last game, which wasn’t that hot either, and removing the pointless XP system and terrible Kinect experience just makes Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 even more bare bones. Save your money, or spend it on seeing the film or reading the book as they would both offer a better experience and waste less of your valuable time and effort.